USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Weymouth > Town annual report of Weymouth 1962 > Part 18
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A great deal of financial assistance to the music program was provided by the Weymouth High School Music Parents' Association, which raised and spent nearly one thousand dollars, in helping with registration fees, transportation, scholarships, a trip to the Boston Pops Concert, and the annual party for the music students.
Two members of the 1962 graduating class were the recipients of full tuition scholarships for the furtherance of their musical study. Elizabeth Hodges is now attending Eastman School of Music, and Laraine Hawes is at Boston University. Both of these young musicians had also won the Wollaston Glee Club Scholarship, Miss Hawes in 1961, and Miss Hodges in 1962.
Nearly 200 students participated in the Weymouth Solo and En- semble Festival in February despite a severe storm. Awards were pre- sented at the Spring Festival. For the first time at Weymouth High School the John Philip Sousa Band Award was presented to the out- standing senior member of the band. The initial winner was Elizabeth Hodges.
All members of the chorus and every instrumentalist looks for- ward with anticipation to using the fine facilities for music at the new High School.
3. PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND ATHLETICS
The most significant development in the Physical Education program in the Weymouth Schools was the action by the School Committee in making physical education compulsory a minimum of two periods weekly in grades one through twelve, including the Vocational High School. In the past, due to lack of facilities, physical education has been optional in grades 11 and 12 and nonexistent in the Vocational School. The new physical education plant has a sufficient number of teaching stations to carry out this more adequate program.
For the past three or four years, the Physical Education program in the elementary schools has concentrated on body building activities. During this time there has been a marked improvement in the physical ability of the pupils. In order to evaluate our program, the Kraus- Weber Test of Muscular Fitness has been given to pupils in Grades 1 and 3. A child who is muscularly fit should be able to pass the en- tire test. In 1960, 21% of the pupils failed, whereas in 1962 only 8% failed. The Pingree School scored the highest with only 2% of the pupils failing. It is interesting to note that there are consistently more
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boys than girls who fail to pass the test. Most failures are because of weak abdominal muscles. This year we gave a test suggested by the President's Council on Physical Fitness in Grades 4, 5, and 6. Most failures in this test were because of weak arm muscles. Consequently, activities which build arm strength will be stressed in the future. Al- though the emphasis is on Physical Fitness, the department makes a concerted effort to give the child a well-rounded program of activities.
The elementary school athletic program for boys had its highest attendance last year. In the past, a two-division league has been in op- eration. In order to cut down on the amount of travel involved, a three- division league was in effect this year. On the basis of one point for first place in each division in each sport, two for second, three for third, etc., the champion for the year went to the school having the lowest point total for all sports. The Hunt School won custody of the trophy for the past year. Under the co-ordination of Vincent Hagerty, this elementary program should improve each year. This athletic pro- gram is very worth-while as it is supervised in each school by a male member of the teaching staff in that school and it plays a very integral role in the overall development of the boy.
A program of varied activity was carried on during the Winter sea- son for girls in grades 5 and 6. This program was also very well at- tended.
The junior high school athletic program is at present a very solid, nonpressure, exploratory one. The regulations and procedures set up for the conduct of this program insure against the possibility of the program being over-emphasized or thrown out of proportion to the overall basic philosophy of the junior high school educational objectives. In the past years the opportunity to participate has been limited to the physically gifted few, rather than the majority. Such activities as Football and Basketball place a premium on weight and height. An activity such as Track stresses for running events and size for field events.
In keeping with the objectives of this department, the high school athletic program has been expanded to include Golf, Tennis, Wrestling, and Gym teams. It is possible for a boy weighing 100 lbs. to become a State wrestling champion, as the competition is by weight division.
I do not believe it necessary to repeat the problems and frustra- tions confronting this department for the past three years due to dou- ble sessions in the high school. With the return of single sessions, the adjustment should he rapid and the performance of all the athletic teams should be more representative.
4. GUIDANCE
Twenty years ago the Department of Guidance Services was estab- lished in the Weymouth Public Schools. It was one of ten guidance departments within the Commonwealth, all organized at about the same time. Now, guidance departments exist in almost every school system in Massachusetts and in other states.
This growth in public school guidance work is the result of the fact that our increasingly complex society has brought with it a greater need for more attention to the individual, a need which guidance ful-
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fills. The Massachusetts Council for Public Schools in its book, "Guid- ance in the Public Schools," January 1962, emphasizes the role of guid- ance by relating it to that heritage of our western civilization which "stresses constantly the importance of the individual." In connection with this relationship, the council sets forth a commonly accepted def- inition of guidance; namely, that "guidance is that part of a school sys- tem's total educational program which, in a systematic and organized way, attempts to help meet the special needs of the individual pupils which cannot be met through the normal instructional practices or ad- ministrative procedures of the given school system."
This definition clearly establishes the place for guidance in the schools. With this framework in mind, it is now possible to review the Weymouth guidance program of the past year in terms of the various activities of which it consists.
One of these basic activities is the collecting, in a systematic and organized way, of pertinent information about all students. Without this information, it is impossible to counsel with students and meet their needs. This information includes school marks, teacher observa- tions, expressed pupil interest and plans, past records, achievement and aptitude tests results. During the past year, the collection of this pertinent information continued as in other years with the exception of two changes in the testing program. One change was in the administra- tion of the Differential Aptitude Tests. These tests were moved from Grade 8 to Grade 9 in the interests of greater predictive accuracy. The other change was in reference to the administration of the Lorge- Thorndike Mental Ability Tests. These tests, which were added to the testing program, were administered in Grade 10 in order to provide a high school mental ability test score which could be added to the tran- script records of seniors going on to college and also to the records of seniors entering those industries which require additional high school test information.
Another basic activity is the collection of the various kinds of edu- cational and vocational information so necessary in assisting students and their parents in the making of educational and vocational decisions. Carrying on this activity involves the maintenance of a reference li- brary of educational and vocational information including a complete and continuing collection of college and university catalogues, pam- phlets on technical schools and junior colleges, part-time and evening educational opportunities, an up-to-date collection of occupational briefs and monographs, and the material from private and public informa- tion services providing up-to-the minute facts about colleges, occupa- tions, and scholarships. During the past year, the number of these in- formational services was increased from seven to eight with the addi- tion of "Careers," a service providing card summaries of educational and vocational information in a visible filing plan convenient for stu- dent use.
A third basic activity of guidance, the key element in the guidance program, is that of counseling. Since all other elements are aids to counseling, no program can be properly labeled as a guidance program unless it includes counseling. Each student in the junior high schools and in the senior high school has at least one counseling interview dur- ing the school year. This is in accordance with the requirements of the State plan of the National Defense Education Act. In addition, many
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other interviews take place. A summary of these conferences and in- terviews which were carried on during the past year in the high school guidance office is set forth in the following paragraph:
There was a grand total of 6,438 conferences and interviews. This included 2,982 scheduled conferences for which the students were asked to come and 2,770 voluntary conferences which were requested by the students themselves. Since students may come to the counselors at any time and as often as they desire, these totals are tabulated on the basis of each visit made by students to the high school guidance office. The grand total of conferences also includes 271 visits from parents and 415 other conferences involving veterans, graduates, employers, college admissions officers, and others.
At the beginning of the present school year, a change was made in the counseling personnel by placing on a full-time basis one of the high school counselors who had been serving half time. This was neces- sary in order to provide for those sophomores who were assigned to the afternoon session and who remained in the old high school building at the time that the new high school building went into operation.
A fourth basic activity within the guidance program is the follow up of high school graduates. This is done in the Spring of each year by contacting the students who graduated the preceding June. A follow-up survey has been carried on for the past fourteen years. Copies of the most recent follow up, that of the Class of 1961, may be obtained at the high school guidance office.
For the past several years, each annual report has included a summary of the college admissions situation. The personnel of the guidance department continues to emphasize the need for early plan- ning. As in the past, seniors should have their applications submitted before January 1st of their senior year, and they should plan to take the College Board Examinations in December and January. Juniors should take their first College Board Scholastic Aptitude Test in March of the junior year and the College Board Achievement Tests in recom- mended subjects in the following May. Because of the necessity for early planning, the guidance department organized a "College Clinic" for juniors in 1961. This clinic will continue to meet each week from March to May during each school year and juniors in the college pre- paratory program are urged to attend.
The average age for high school graduates is 18 years. It is well to note that statistics show a rapid increase in the number of 18 year olds in Massachusetts as well as in other states in 1964. Thus, the present class of high school juniors who are soon to become seniors will be faced with greater competition for college admission than that faced by other graduating classes in recent years. College admission will be offered first to students with high academic standing and to those who have achieved success in advanced work. Students with average aca- demic records, or lower than average, may be forced to consider junior colleges and technical schools. Many of these schools offer opportuni- ties to continue on to the last two years of a degree-granting college pro- vided a good academic record is achieved during the junior college years.
From July 1, 1962, to the end of the present Federal fiscal year, the high school and the South Junior High School will receive Federal
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reimbursement for guidance services at the rate of approximately 60c per pupil. Because the counseling ratio in the Bicknell and the Cen- tral Junior High Schools is above 400 students to one counselor, these two schools are not eligible for Federal reimbursement at the present time.
As this report is being prepared, plans are being made to move the guidance offices to the new high school building before the end of the year. These offices include five counseling rooms, a reception area, a test storage room, and a space for the office files. This office area is completely adequate for the number of students enrolled in the new high school building, and the arrangement of this office space has been approved by the State Supervisor of Guidance and Placement.
5. SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST AND ELEMENTARY
GUIDANCE COUNSELOR
In every school and at every grade level are children with problems, physical, mental, emotional, and social in nature. In every age group are children with specific needs, psychological in nature: the need for love and affection, security, recognition, and the sense of belonging. If these problems remain unattended and if these basic needs are unmet during the early school years, the unhappy, unadjusted youngster of today may well become the ineffectual, discontented, social misfit adult of tomorrow. The fact that the problems of maladjustment which ap- pear at junior or senior high school have their origin in early childhood experiences is evidence of the need for an elementary guidance program.
The classroom teacher holds the key role in the guidance program. He is in the unique position to observe daily the child's behavior in formal and informal situations. He has the unmatched opportunity to watch the actions and interactions of the child with his peer group and with authority figures.
When the child's behavior interferes with his learning or when it detracts from the welfare of the group the teacher makes a referral to the guidance counselor. The counselor then attempts to evaluate the problem, identify the special need and make recommendations. She works directly with the teacher in setting up some plan for treatment. She confers with the parents to inform them of the problem as seen by the school and to solicit their co-operation in planning for its solution. The counselor acts as a resource person, assists with case studies and with referrals. She is a link in the chain of communication between home and school, school and clinic. She works closely with all school personnel.
Emphasis on guidance at the elementary level is increasing. As the program has grown out of specific needs it has within it many re- quirements yet to be met: an awareness on the part of the classroom teacher to make early identification and referral, a development pro- gram with prevention of pupil problems in the early school years, a deeper understanding of and provisions for the underachievers-those children whose achievement is not commensurate with ability and a closer relationship with parents and home.
The guidance counselor is responsible for the testing program, the administration and interpretation of group and individual tests.
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Tests administered in 1962.
1. Group Mental Ability Tests
Date Grade Test Number Tested
January and February I Pintner Cunningham 932
November III California Mental Maturity 904
November and December VI California Mental Maturity 858
2. Individual Mental Ability Tests
Individual tests are given to:
a. determine eligibility for special class placement
b. re-evaluate children enrolled in special class
c. secure additional data on those children who score low in group tests
d. obtain diagnostic information on children presenting learning or emotional difficulties
e. determine ability of those children new to the school system and for whom there has been little or no transfer information
3. Group Achievement Tests
Grade II: Lee-Clark Reading Test, 892 tested. Actual grade level 2.4. (test given in fourth month of second grade) Test Median Score 3.0
Grade III: Iowa Test of Basic Skills, 945 tested. Actual grade level 3.8. (test given in eighth month of third grade)
Median Score
Results: Composite 4.5
Vocabulary 4.5
Reading Comprehension 4.3
Language 4.8
Arithmetic 4.6
Grade IV: Iowa Test of Basic Skills, 903 tested. Actual grade level 4.8.
Median Score
Results: Composite 5.4
Vocabulary 5.3
Reading Comprehension 5.3
Language 5.6
Arithmetic
5.5
Grade V: Iowa Test of Basic Skills, 850 tested. Actual grade level 5.9
Median Score
Results: Composite
6.9
Reading
6.2
Vocabulary 6.6
Language 7.7
Arithmetic
6.6
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Grade VI: Iowa Test of Basic Skills, 871 tested. Actual grade level 6.7.
Median Score
Results: Composite 7.5
Vocabulary
7.5
Reading Comprehension 7.2
Language
8.3
Work Study Skills 7.2
Arithmetic 7.2
This is the first year in which the Iowa Basic Skills Test was ad- ministered to Grades III, IV, V, VI. We will now be provided with an on-going measure of pupil growth and achievement.
6. ADJUSTMENT COUNSELOR
Troubled children continue to challenge our public school educative process. These children are not lacking in intellectual ability but rather handicapped by inner emotional turmoil. Unless they are helped they will not develop into useful adults. Their early breakdown in hu- man relations paves the way for failure and frustration, with conse- quent hostility to community ideals.
Fifty-one requests for school reports were made by the Quincy District Court for Weymouth children in trouble with the law during 1962. Again, as in the past, reports showed chronic poor marks and attendance, or non-conformity to school rules with long-term malad- justment. Court conferences preceding juvenile session at court were attended by the counselor on a weekly basis. With the large numbers of children in trouble throughout the state, facilities for help and treatment continue to be limited. Early referral for help in schools- where children display their needs and failings-constitutes one of the major tools to prevent moral, social, intellectual and psychological breakdown.
Sixty-two children were referred for adjustment counseling during the period January-December 1962. Two hundred thirty-two home visits were made and three hundred eighty-one interviews with chil- dren at planned intervals were completed. Related consultations with psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers at hospitals, clinics and social agencies were held.
Twenty families were directed in the use of community resources, and appropriate consultation with the agency or clinic was arranged.
During the past year, the Adjustment Counselor Program initiated small group meetings with mothers. The purpose of these meetings is to explore ways of changing attitudes or factors involved in inter- familial stress which might cause poor school adjustment of the child. With the expert help of our school psychologist, a group of mothers has been meeting weekly with the counselor to discuss mutual problems of child development. This method of helping parents and children is productive in that more can be counseled at one time. It constitutes a meaningful experience for those involved, since it serves to make ac- ceptable in a group what might be resisted and considered threatening on an individual basis. The group includes six mothers, three of whom
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have already begun to see positive change in their children's academic growth.
Since a child's problem is usually a family problem, parental in- volvement is of vital importance in seeking solutions. Home and office interviews of limited time and number were scheduled for all parents of children referred for counseling. An essential requirement of child referrals from schools continues to be parental awareness of a prob- lem. Their willingness to participate in the helping process is sought by the counselor. With principal, teacher, parent, counselor, and other adjunctive services co-operating, many children have been helped.
Boston University School of Social Work selected Weymouth schools this year as a field placement for a second year graduate stu- dent majoring in school adjustment counseling. With administrative consent, Mr. John Johnston began his field work in September 1962, supervised by the adjustment counselor on a bi-weekly basis. Mr. Johnston was assigned nine cases.
The counselor is active on committees at Boston College School of Social Work, Boston University School of Social Work, the School Social Work Section of the National Association of Social Workers, and regional committee of the Massachusetts School Adjustment Counselors. Such activity provides the counselor with immediate knowledge of im- provement in the field of school adjustment counseling and is of great value in his work.
With the behavioral sciences continuing to develop the skills and knowledge used in the treatment of children with complex problems, expansion of the current adjustment counseling service would be of en- during and steadily growing benefit to the Weymouth School System and the community.
7. AUDIO-VISUAL
The Department of Audio-Visual Instruction has continued its primary function of providing teachers with the resource materials, techniques, tools and services with which they may better achieve their goal of effective communication with their students.
This has been a year of consolidation of existing phases of audio- visual education and of planning entirely new, exciting activities at the high school level never before possible because of double sessions and the physical limitations of the old building but now a reality with the new building. The physical movement of the audio-visual department to its new quarters in the new high school marked a most significant development in the Weymouth history of audio-visual in its forward progress toward a completely integrated Instructional Materials Cen- ter.
This department has continued to realize the full potential of the National Defense Education Act of 1958 as it remains for at least two more years a major bulwark in the strengthening of mathematics, science and foreign languages through the acquisition and use of the newer media of communications. In addition to a complete language laboratory and excellent instructional facilities in other areas (one-half the cost of which was borne by NDEA) a fully equipped television studio and closed circuit facility is expected momentarily to qualify under this act.
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Constant evaluations are being made of such rapidly developing areas as programmed learning, educational television, both open-and closed-circuit, multi-size group instruction and team-teaching. Thus "newer" trends offer much to the future educational pattern and the best of each area is being incorporated into the Weymouth educational program as its value becomes apparent.
As the audio-visual program concludes its sixteenth year of pro- viding instructional services to the pupils and teachers of the Wey- mouth Public Schools, the following highlights should be noted:
1. The sixteen-year program for providing darkening facilities for every classroom was completed this year. Weymouth should be proud of this accomplishment with the realization that every classroom may now function as a completely independent learning area for what- ever activity may be most effective.
2. Central sound-film and filmstrip libraries have been expanded to 260 and 2800 separate titles, respectively, with an additional 600 du- plicate filmstrip titles available. Also, Weymouth has continued to be selected as a permanent-loan repository for more than 175 outstanding sound films from industry. The Instructional Materials Center makes available to all teachers more than 450 records and pre-recorded tapes. These records are of such a nature as to preclude their being required on an individual building basis. Expansion of these facilities is en- abling the department to better meet the requirements of all good teaching: "The right material, at the right place, at the right time."
3. A sound-film catalog supplement was issued to each teacher at the elementary and secondary levels. However, this area requires extensive revision and curriculum correlation on a scale that suggest the need for a summer workshop project.
4. In-service training was conducted on a continuing basis both with school audio-visual co-ordinators, individual teachers, and groups of teachers as the need was indicated or requested. This phase of the program may now be considerably expanded with the new facilities available in the Instructional Materials Center.
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